Lauren Dempsey, MS in Biomedicine and Law, RN, FISM News 

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Researchers from Cyprus say they have discovered another new variant of COVID-19 they are calling “Deltacron,” which combines 10 mutations of the Delta and Omicron variants, though some remain skeptical.

Those who sounded the alarm say that the new variant has been detected in patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in Cyprus. They claim to have identified 25 cases thus far, 14 of which were from patients in the public that have not been hospitalized. 

Leondios Kostrikis, a professor at the University of Cyprus and head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology has said that the newly identified variant is a combination of the Delta and Omicron variants that has Omicron genetic signatures within the Delta genome. 

Health experts are trying to determine if the “Deltacron” variant is more contagious, but many experts believe that this new discovery may actually be a lab processing error. Dr. Krutika Kuppalli tweeted that the error may have occurred through contamination and “is likely due to sequencing artifact” which is not uncommon as very small volumes of liquid can cause this variation. Kupalli explained that what most likely happened was “the contamination of Omicron fragments in a Delta specimen.”

Other scientists have voiced agreement with Kuppalli’s assertion, with many echoing that the findings are indicative of a lab error. Dr. Tom Peacock, a virologist from Imperial College London tweeted that “the Cypriot ‘Deltacron’ sequences reported by several large media outlets look to be quite clearly contamination.” In a thread of responses, he explained how this occurs and he noted that “quite a few of us have had a look at the sequences and come to the same conclusion it doesn’t look like a real recombinant.” 

While this potential new variant looks more like a contaminated sample rather than a true recombinant, it is important to note that this could occur in the future. Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, an infectious diseases expert at Emory University in Atlanta explained in a tweet that with both the Delta variant and the Omicron variant still circulating, it is possible that their genetic material may mix:

https://twitter.com/Boghuma/status/1480204298948653059

Kostrikis continues to stand by his discovery of “Deltacron,” insisting that it was not a lab error, but is indeed a mutation that occurred from “evolutionary pressure to an ancestral strain to acquire these mutations.”

There have been no documented cases of “Deltacron” in the United States and the Omicron variant continues to be the dominant strain circulating. According to the CDC, January 7th had 831,304 new cases that were reported, though positive case rates have remained largely detached from deaths and ICU hospitalizations. 

In an interview with Fox News reporter Bret Baier, the CDC director Rochelle Walensky made it clear that in some cases 40% of hospitalized patients that have COVID-19 are incidental findings, something that many critics of the agency have been pointing out for the last 21 months. 

When asked if the agency knew how many of the 836,000 deaths in the United States were from COVID-19 or with COVID-19, Walensky simply responded, “Yes of course with omicron we’re following that very carefully.”

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